The Palestinian Question

by Eduardo del Buey

Welcome Readers to In the Crosshairs. Today’s guest for our videocast is Alan Kessel, former Assistant Deputy Minister for Legal Affairs at the Canadian Foreign Ministry.

Alan mentioned a Canadian pundit doing excellent work on key issues during the interview. That pundit is Casey Babb, who works with the MacDonald Laurier Institute: https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/.

We hope you enjoy this article and interview and invite you to share it with friends and colleagues.

The Palestinian Question

A few weeks ago, I drafted a proposal for some people to consider concerning the possibility of pursuing an international process to discuss peace between Palestinians and Israel that could culminate in a two-state solution.

This idea has now been overtaken by events, and we are all left to ask what next.

The Palestinians have relied on two main pillars of support: its regional allies, who could pressure Israel militarily and through terrorism, and its global international cadres of support.

Hamas and Hezbollah, who provided the threat and actual terrorist pressure on Israelis, are now, for all intents and purposes, gone.

Iran is on the back foot – concerned with losing its crescent of influence in the region.

Syria is in disarray, and Turkey now appears to be vying with Iran for influence in the region.

Turkey has no immediate way to support whatever insurgency is still alive in Gaza or the West Bank, absent a direct confrontation with Israel. President Erdogan is obsessed with his war against the Kurds and continues his country’s massacre of its civilians.

Should Israel decide to support the creation of an independent Kurdistan, Erdogan will be concerned not only with Israel but also with the possible reactions of his NATO allies, whose voters already have a poor opinion of their erstwhile Turkish allies.

The incoming Trump administration may well decide to partially forgo its “America First” policy as it deals with regional realpolitik and impose tougher and more comprehensive sanctions on the regime.

This could lead Iran to pursue its nuclear option with all that it portends for the region.

Elsewhere, pro-Palestinian Islamist forces – currently strong on the streets and campuses of many Western cities and receiving latent or active support from many elected politicians and police -- are suffering increasingly negative reactions from the public.

Many are calling for the deportation of Palestinian non-citizens and their Muslim allies, and the general geopolitical shift to the right in many countries is a strong reaction to the local pro-Palestinian political parties and institutions.

The United Nations has no credibility with Israel and Israelis and will not be a major player in the near or even distant future. Indeed, its moral authority is in the gutter, and its leadership is compromised through acts of commission and omission.

Despite its challenges, Israel is far stronger today than it was on October 6, 2023.

For all of his political faults, Prime Minister Netanyahu has led the country in a successful campaign to drive Hamas and Hezbollah into the ground and, directly or indirectly, contribute to the end of the Assad dictatorship and considerably weaken the regime in Teheran.

He will now be consumed by dealing with the great unknown: the complexion and orientation of the new regime in Damascus.

The Palestinian diaspora is unreadable since it has no real leadership or structure through which to manage the views of Palestinians abroad or link them with the non-existent leadership in Gaza or the West Bank.

The only leadership available is the moribund Palestinian Authority (PA) under the leadership of the corrupt octogenarian Mahmoud Abbas. It has had little to say or do of any consequence during the past few years.

If the PA were to choose a new leader such as Marwan Barghouti, who is currently in an Israeli prison but who is well-liked by many Palestinians, he or someone like him could become a voice for Palestinians seeking to become partners of sorts in a future peace process.

A critical first step would be the release of the remaining hostages taken by Hamas, the establishment of an interim government in Gaza and the West Bank, and the creation of a multinational security force in Gaza.

Would the Israelis agree to releasing Barghouti and engaging in such a process?

De Klerk and Mandela come to mind. The South African government released Nelson Mandela and negotiated the transition in South Africa from 1990 to 1994. Might this be an option?

Given the horrible massacre of October 7, 2023, we would be hard-pressed to find enough Israelis who could establish a consensus to motivate Israel to consider the demands of Palestinians at this time.

Indeed, a Times of Israel poll of Israelis and Palestinians published in September reveals that the two sides nearly mirror each other in their levels of fear and distrust. In addition, given the barbarity of the October 7 attacks, Jewish Israeli respondents report record-low rates of support for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the forms of a one- or two-state solution or a confederation with Palestinians.

An indicator of the prevailing distrust is that about 90% of respondents on each side attribute extreme, maximalist aspirations to the other. Sixty-six percent of Jewish Israelis and 61% of Palestinians believe the other side wants to commit genocide against them, and an additional 27% of Jewish Israelis and 26% of Palestinians say the other side wants to conquer the land “from the river to the sea” and expel them.

Furthermore, a record-high 94% of Palestinians and 86% of Israelis say that the other side cannot be trusted.

This is the baseline from which we would have to advance in a search for dialogue.

Gradual measures might establish greater confidence on both sides. This could eventually allow a dialogue to begin and for more concrete steps to be taken by both sides to allow the past to remain in the past.

But, identifying credible leaders on both sides who could get there and establish such a dialogue will be difficult and slow indeed.

Videocast: